Epsom Escape: The Challenge Chambers

Epsom, Oct 2018

I knew before playing Challenge Chambers that it was a competitive ‘versus’ game where two teams can compete in identical copies of the room; what I hadn’t realised was that it also has a variable score system. Each copy of the room has a wall of puzzles, arranged in a grid. Your briefing tells you that you need to bring a key from one side of the grid to the other; since the puzzle padlocks block the key’s path, to do so you need to solve at least a third of the grid. However, other puzzles release bonus balls; and truly ambitious teams can aim to solve the whole lot.

You might assume that such a puzzle-centric room wouldn’t bother with a backstory, but Challenge Chambers does. Its premise is that a Victorian earl built a room of puzzles as a test for his daughters’ suitors to overcome; and there’s more to the story that unfolds during the course of the game. That theming also extends to the puzzle design, whose solutions often involve a little moral about the virtues needed for happy married life, from the point of view of a possessively paternalistic Victorian gentleman.

Challenge Chambers’ score-based, massively non-linear design is exceedingly unusual but not quite unique; I’ve played a couple of other games based on similar ideas (though neither of those were set up for versus play), and my impression is that it’s a difficult style to do well. The first hurdle is that the sheer quantity of things to work on is overwhelming at the start of the game, and that was the case here – I spent the first few minutes doing little more than looking around like a stunned calf, undecided between the many starting points.

But the really big difficulty with a game of this sort is judging the quantity and difficulty of the content. Normal games settle into a flow where you solve a puzzle and are rewarded with clues that let you tackle the next step, but here you have almost everything up front, and each successful solve bounces you back to the same problems you were already stuck on. That can mean the initial flurry of success grinds down to a frustrating series of roadblocks in the second half of the game. Fortunately, that didn’t happen in Challenge Chambers. The last quarter of the game certainly slowed down, but none of the puzzles felt unsolvable – the final three that we hadn’t done when the time ran out felt like we just needed a little more time to get through them.

Different groups’ experience will vary, depending on team size and how easy they find the puzzles. But the structure gives a clear initial goal with a structure that helps players decide what to focus on while still giving them alternatives when there’s something they simply can’t get past. Which is to say: I thought the design just worked, in a way that could be played either competitively or co-operatively, managing to strike a difficulty balance that should work for teams of all levels of experience.

The design puts quantity first, but there’s nothing wrong with the quality either; while some of the content is straightforward and felt a bit like filler, there’s plenty that’s much more satisfying, varying from physical manipulation through lateral thinking to multi-step logic and symbol matching.

You can also play it co-operatively as a single room, and that may be the more economical option since booking both copies costs twice as much as booking one; but if you’re looking for a versus game then it’s an excellent choice. Each time the opposing team gains one of the bonus balls it comes rolling down past you with a noisy thump, thump, thump that gives an oppressive sense of your rivals’ progress, plus a walkie-talkie that allows the two teams to swap clues or crow over how well they’re doing.

This game is so considerably different to The Invitation, both in game play and in quality. it is so much better. I love a room where you have to search for clues rather then just have difficult puzzles to solve. This was really interactive and once you knew what you were doing, really enjoyable.

Good theming/atmosphere (although not necessarily theming of the puzzles themselves) & lots of puzzle content to keep a team busy.

Had a loss of direction on a couple of occasions, especially at the beginning with working out how to proceed. Has made me appreciate other rooms where it\'s clear where a code goes when acquired, and also that sequence puzzles in an ideal order (frustrating to think you have unlocked a puzzle, but it eventually turns out you didn\'t have everything you needed to solve at the time). Still don\'t enjoy mathematics in any form in rooms (even with a provided calculator!).

Overall an enjoyable experience, surprisingly so given its location which seemed to cater to a younger audience (adjacent to soft-play area, climbing wall etc.). Very happy they offer a price for only 2 people, which seemed very reasonable. Go and visit if in Keswick, make sure to select the \'experienced\' setting when booking.

In doing a range of other escape rooms, I have come across a wide range of puzzles, great use of space and immersion.

As a whole it very much feels that this room tries to have a story to it but for us, it didn’t flow and was incredibly disjointed. We found things before finding the clue to lead to that thing so when we did then find the clue it was redundant and confusing.

The game starts with the GM playing Great Uncle Reginald’s video for you. This takes place in the room and so we of course, took this opportunity to start exploring the room and as a result earned a five minute clue penalty for not paying full attention to the video. Although the room overview states the solicitor has an envelope, inside of which is a VHS tape, it isn’t introduced in this way and we wondered afterwards if it would have been better to have found the video somewhere in the room (as another puzzle almost) and to then have to play it ourselves.

As we got going, we discovered that this room had limited variation in its puzzles - things were in the main either a padlock or a combination code. There was very little variety and whilst this can work in some rooms, it didn’t in this room. There was also scope for variation and some things could have easily been something other than ‘another key’. In terms of the puzzles, one was incredibly simplistic in nature (and wasn’t really even a puzzle) whilst another required careful calculation and working out. It felt like you went from one extreme to the other - there was clear thought put into some puzzles but this was completely lacking in others. My partner asked at the end if this was their first ever room because it felt very much like the puzzles had been created and had never then been updated or reviewed. There are certainly better ways of doing things, or even use of certain tech that could be used to update some of the things in this room. Compared to other rooms, it felt very much behind on the times.

There are two doors in the room to give the feel of it being a B&B, both doors have keyholes in them so naturally you think you’re going to need a key to open them, to lead into different rooms. Unfortunately this is not the case and we wasted a lot of time checking to see if the keyholes actually had locks in. I did say to the GM at the end that they shouldn’t have the keyhole in, to indicate they aren’t used in the game.

For us, there was also poor use of space. We spent a lot of time trying to work out how we were going to get somewhere which was never the case. This wasn’t at all clear and more could have been done in the design of the room to indicate this. It goes back to what I said about the original design not being reviewed or updated.

It really says it all when your partner wants to walk out with 25 minutes to go, as mine did. We were both frustrated by the lack of flow and even us standing around doing nothing didn’t prompt the GM to nudge us in any way. I also think this is where the company’s 3 clue rule falls short. We were reluctant to ask for clues, despite clearly not knowing what to do next, in case we needed to use that clue later on. In any room, I would rather ask for 20 clues and escape than ask for none and not complete it. At the end of the day, it’s my game that I have paid (in most cases a lot of money) to play, and I should be allowed to play it as I want and if that involves me asking for more than 3 clues, that should be allowed.

On the whole, possibly an enjoyable room for novices but I would say not one for more experienced players who have an understanding of escape rooms, who expect things to flow, variation in puzzles and better use of tech to support the room. Unfortunately not just The Last Testament, but my Last Room with Know Escape. I won’t be returning to do another room there.